[Game] Collecting ideas

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm just taking some notes.

The write up for species, is from Frank's Kitchensink RPG thread. They are well described, and are able to be arranged on an Earth-type of map. Which is sort of what I want to do in the first place.

The 'setting', and creature species distribution is going to be from my "Earth as setting" thread.

Mechanics: I want to use this "rule of 3" system I'm working on. This is a separate project, but once I've got the ability-defense interaction rules laid out, then it will be almost done (right now training, damage, and damage tracks, almost everything related to gathering/proccessing/crafting resources, basic combat mechanics, and 'time flow' of how combat is expected to work has all been done; figuring out 'what' the description text for different abilities and defenses will take some time, but now I know the framework with which I need to use for writing up different abilities).

The game is set in the 'now'. Although, probably a bit of a disjointed 'now' than we know.

The 'basic' premise is that, once, long ago, there was some massive golden age; and then, tens of thousands of years later, people have rebuilt society, and improved on it since then. So, there are things like say, teleportation (via magic, or items, artifacts, etc.), but not interstates.

The 'time period' is.... a bit odd. I have this idea, where every part of the world is controlled by their most historically, or popularily, society and leaders.

So... England seriously has King Arthur (Welsh), and maybe Queen Victoria (English, Tudor), or Winston Churchill (British), and they are a half-dragon (red) Knight-King, a [something] Queen, and an Uruk Military Commander and Parliamentarian.

"Nations" can seriously be tiny. England could seriously have Queen Elizabeth, and King Arthur, and Winston Churchill as characters.

Egypt could be run by Lich Pharohs (Drow), Cleopatra (Greek), and have a 'capital' owned by Magnus Alexander (Albanian/Macedonian) in the far north of the Nile Delta.

Having every region become a sort of 'mini' kitchen sink allows for the easy creation of NPC factions, that are very easy to figure out a general explanation for their motivations, methods, and goals.

The fact that The Ancient Romans, are represented by Hobgoblins is not without reason. Neither is the fact that modern day Italians are mostly represented by humans, halflings and dwarves (with the odd mix in of other creatures from other parts that have immigrated here, Ifriti from Spain and Drow from Egypt live in Italy to some degree). The giants you meet in Italy might be shepherds, but they're not likely to be a Cyclops, nor intoxicated easily. They'll probably be hill giants, or stone giants.

[Judging__Eagle]

Parts of the World:
[I want some more ideas for these, especially filling in what species from fantasy are good analogs for different culture groups. I want Uruks to be 'some' of the Germanic people, and Alfar to be some of the others. Honestly, I could just mix and match at random, but I'd rather have some sort of logic behind what I do. :/

Population centres will be the same as they were either now, or at whenever it was at their peak/most memorable in history.

So, Italy will have Milan, Venice and Naples; and those are run by who knows (Dveurges, Yahoos, Halflings, Clickies, Robota, etc.), but Rome is a Hobgoblin city, and the heart of the Roman Imperium.

Most "empires" and "kingdoms" are more likely to be... economic. People can already teleport, so 'colonies', and 'expansion' is going to be in one of two methods 1) wage war, and have to deal with local adventurers/heroes; 2) find a place that is good to plant turnips, and no one is living on.

The Roman Empire may have economic ties (for grain) with the Pharoh-Lich Ramses, and his Greek agent/consort Cleopatra, but they're not trying to invade the whole of the world. Partly because the locals are not going to go down easy, and will resort fo guerilla warfare, and partly because whatever local monster problem exists, will now have to be dealt with by your military, if you don't want the place to get swallowed into the wilderness.

Some people are very hardcore, and can convince, or raise massive armies. Ghengis Khan and Magnus Alexander were both adventurers, and raised armies of lots of people with adventurer class levels. Even then, they couldn't conquer the world. Subotai died of illness (delivered by fiends perhaps? hmmm), and Alexander decided to turn back when his growing army began to face animate stone juggernauts, vampires, and... ugh, seriously, who knows. It's freaking India, there's literally hundreds of awesome, impressive, mythical creatures that you could have originate from there. Let's just say India had more than Alex could handle.

=========

Africa:

North (Sahara, North Coast, Egypt)

Central (Congo? Ivory Coast?)

Eastern

Western

Southern (honestly, having a nation where the local Anansi have British/Dutch analogs as second class citizens sounds like fun; more so if the minority is rabid about the situation; but that's just me)

Missing?What is?

Australia:

Random thoughts:

Bunyips, Kangaroo men, 'Drop' Bears (are intelligent people), Aboriginals (human), British (Uruks), Japanese (Eladrins/Hobgoblins/Oni) + human immigrants.

It's a massive sunburnt country; you could seriously have all of the above (and more), and still have the entire outback as desolate terrain.

Asia:

East Asia:

Japan

China

India

Tibet/Alps

Northern Asia:

Mongolia, All of the "-stans"; basically anything/everything between China, Pakisatan and Russia

Sibera/Irkutsk/Kamchatka

Middle East:

Who owns the Holy Land? Seriously... I could see a case for every biblical hero existing, and they're all different species that are related to each other via marriage.

The fact that Sampson is a half-giant [something], who murders Philistines of the same (or nearly the same) species should be worth some laughs.

Need ideas for:

Iran (Ayran)

Iraq

The Euphrates/Tigris are in this region as well; any ideas for what the 'first' adam and eve were?

Europe:

South: Italy, Sicily (the rest are in west, and... yes, it's the same country. >_>).

North: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany

West: Ireland, Scotland, England, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, (where are the Basques?), Netherlands

East: Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Solvenia, Serbia, Lithunania, Estonia, etc.

Central: Switzerland


North America

Centra America

South America


=========

Going to have to use my Races as Nations thread.

and Frank's Dead Man's Hand

Heartbreaker MMO Ideas


Other things:

MMO discussions

Dragon World Either the tutorial, or the 'expansion' for the core setting, of Earth.

Alfar/Dveurge 40k Ideas, I want the Elves and Dwarves to look like this.

Ideas for morality.
Players should be able to champion, or not, a cause, and be recognized for it, or not, if they want. There's good/evil, but there should be also law/chaos. I want people to think that the laws are backwards, or could use change, or approving of laws that grant personal freedom makes you more chaotic, while the opposite makes you more lawful? Places that restrict rights by race, are more lawful, than places that don't.

[Judging__Eagle]

Desired Features, and methods of organizing in game systems.

I'm seriously considering making "leveling" to not really be the goal. The 'goal' is player versus player, and player with player, based games.

Players do not have

Some things I want in this project:

The Basic Mechanic
[*]Rule of Three, let it be
[*]Repeat words, less confusing
[*]Sometimes the Rule of Three doesn't have to be obeyed

Players are integral
[*]Running Organizations
[*]Playing 'Powerful' Monsters
[*]Crafting items (ideas for items, recipes for items, actual items)
[*]Content generation (dungeons, monsters, models for items)
[*]Why do players want to "do work"?

The World
[*]One you know very well
[*]...yet, not that well
[*]Points of Power
[*]Ley Lines

The Creatures
[*]Kitchen Sink, what does that mean?
[*]Members of the Sink
[*]Hangers-on
[*]Outsiders

Character Abilities
[*]Active, Reactive, Non-Combat
[*]Using powers
[*]Active Powers
[*]Reactive Powers
[*]Non-Combat



==========
Players are integral to game play

Organizations
Players will be encouraged to "build" things (a la Shadowbane), and form organizations.

When the Order of Blackgaurds, Knaves and Liars tells you that they don't trust you and your golden lute, you'll probably have to go and get all black-clothed and come back with some do-gooder PC scalps, and an officialy issues price on your head, before they'll let you in. Ideally, actual players are the entire core of this.

Monsters

Monsters will be incredibly more dangerous than in most other computer games. This is because other players will operate the game's most 'dangerous' enemy monsters. While still having a full suite of weird "monster" powers.

Resources/Crafting

Players will 'spend' resources (genericized, into one of three tiers), to 'build' items in a generic building system. Reserving right to change things within this system is going to always be had.


The "boss fight" in a dungeon is seriously 5 players against anywhere from 1 to 5 other players.

Monsters will have three main types. Mundane things, Magical things, and Mythical things. Mundane things are no better than most creatures in most MMOs, they chase, follow, use some abilities, and then sometimes run away.

Magical, and Mythical things are basically bosses of some kind. They are run by players.

[Judging__Eagle]

Right, since I'm going to picking and choosing, and I want both cool, and appropriate, choices for species, I'm going to copy-pasta Frank's writeups from Dead Man's Hand; and then the Kitchen Sink RPG ones as well.
=======

The Kitchen Sink: Forehead Aliens and Anthropology

Dungeons & Dragons is at its core a kitchen sink fantasy game. That means that the stories you tell with it will be set in a world that has a whole lot of stuff in it. There are more than a dozen varieties of true breeding serpent people. There are more than twenty kinds of magic. And that means that there are a lot of stories you can tell. It means that you can tell a story that revolves around any one of those unique types of serpent people, or one that involves people using any of those kinds of magic. But there are also stories you cannot tell. You can't tell a story where, like on Earth, there is only one sapient species and all differences that people base nations around are subtle variations of pigmentation or height. You can't tell a story where anyone is particularly surprised that they don't recognize some new serpent man race, because there are so many of those things that slithering around that no one expects to be able to identify them all. In short, you can't tell a story where uniqueness is unique. Nor can you tell a story where the edges of things are well defined, because there are too many edges to define.

The best analogy is to think about the galaxy of Star Trek. There are a lot of different aliens, and most of them differ only by a couple of bumps on their forehead. Even though each one is a sapient race with thousands of years of history and culture and experiments with different governmental and economic systems, generally each one is going to show up in one episode and contribute only a couple of characters with speaking parts and only a single rather simple dilemma. Their treatment is necessarily shallow, because there needs to be room for all the other sapient races. If you double the page space devoted to one race, you have to eliminate another altogether to make room.

What this means is that the vast majority of races are going to have just a simple description and some basic rules information, and if they don't happen to show up in the campaign, they'll stay that way. And if they do show up, they will be fleshed out at the table. If a player brings in a minotaur, it is partly their responsibility to flesh out the basics of Minotaur physiology and culture as part of their character's backstory and ongoing roleplaying. Often a factoid about such a species will not be important or considered until some point well into the story. And when it does come up, it is important for a Kitchen Sink game to have someone make up an answer that is cool and then move on.

The Mythic Origins of Major Races

There are hundreds of races that appear in a kitchen sink setting, and any of them can be a major race in some peoples' campaigns. But there are a few that are going to be major in most peoples' campaigns. To extend the Star Trek metaphor, these are the Vulcans and Klingons – and Humans. These races have enough traction that they are used very frequently. And in response to that, they get extra descriptive text to help players have less dissonance between different games. And because they get the extra descriptive text, they are even more likely to get used in individual games and thus become even more deserving of the extra description they receive. It's a delicious cycle.

Cambion

The Cambion are a race of demonic people made from the blood of humans and demons. Demons have a difficult time getting into the mortal world, so they created a race of halfbreeds to help them n as part of an ancient plan to destroy and/or conquer the world. The plot appears to have failed, in that the world still exists and people grow and play without being under the yoke of demon masters, but the descendants live on. Cambion vary wildly in appearance, with some looking angelically beautiful and others looking like skulking monsters. There were apparently a lot of different demons being used in the original Cambion creation process and there are a lot of recessive genes knocking around – there's no special guaranty that the children of Cambion will look terribly similar to their parents. In general, you can spot a Cambion by looking basically like a human with extra demon traits. How extensive the demon traits depends entirely on what the budget of the makeup department is.

The word Cambion is an archaic Latin word meaning the child of a human and a demon. This sort of thing appears in the folklore of practically every culture on Earth, and has appeared under such disparate names as Mandeha, Hanyo, and Nephillim. Cambion have graced such important literature as Shakespeare's The Tempest, and have been brought into fantasy gaming by Dungeons & Dragons under the names Tiefling, Genasi, and “Half Fiend.” Cambions are often portrayed as being haunted by evil, or gleefully evil, but in a game about role playing and choices, the Cambion are treated instead as just being kind of jerks.

Drow

The Drow are black skinned Elves that live underground. They are creepy, treacherous, and cruel, and a lot of people don't like them very much. Their culture prides the use of poison and is fiercely competitive. The very first question that a lot of people ask about the Drow is why they have black skin rather than white skin if they spend all their time underground in the absence of light. And the answer is that they have black skin because they are tunnel adapted. They don't have dark brown skin (from excessive melanin production to protect against sunlight), they have black skin – a result of a build-up of microscopic carbon dust in their skin. They live in tunnels, and rather than getting “black lung” they get “black skin” that is totally harmless. Presumably a newborn baby Drow is the same color as any other Elf and if they stayed in areas with very low quantities of carbon dust, their skin would only get a little spotty with black and gray patches.

The Drow are very iconically associated with Dungeons & Dragons, because the folklore they are based on is now rather obscure. The origin is with the black skinned alfar from the underworld kingdom of Helheim in Norse legend, with whom they share a name. Now in the original legend they have black skin, not because of any biological mechanism, but merely because they look much spookier that way and everything from Helheim is supposed to be as spooky as possible. Interestingly, in D&D the Drow show up twice, once as black skinned Elves, and once as black skinned Dwarves (as “Derro” which is of course the same word). Evil, or at least frightening Elves are pretty standard throughout the world, and come with such names as Sidhe, Wakyambi, and Yaksha, but the specifically black skinned, tunnel dwelling variety can be blamed on old Germanic folklore, and the fact that any of us have heard of them can be laid at the feet of R. A. Salvatore.

Dwarf

Dwarves are hardy and strong tunnel dwelling humanoids who are prone to great feats of mining, metalwork, and have a love of strong booze and a long history of kicking ass and taking names. Dwarves are very temperature tolerant and live in places that are so cold that ice forms in their massive beards, and also get by in sweltering conditions adjacent to magma flows. Dwarves are hardy against poison and need alcohol for its nutritional value.

Dwarfs have been around for thousands of years, and for most of that period have been roughly interchangeable with Elves. There exists a continuum of these mythic spirit-folk where they range from tiny to large, strong to frail, technically inclined to barbarous, smart to dull, and magical to mundane. And it was essentially Tolkien who divided up the traits into what we normally think of as “elves and dwarves” (and indeed, “dwarves” is a correct pluralization of “dwarf” entirely because Tolkien said it was). Recall that outside the fantasy genre, Santa has “Elves” who are short and skillful at making things and so on. But in the fantasy genre, Santa would have dwarves instead. Essentially, Tolkien based the “Dwarves” on more Norse sources (where the dovetailed more with the Alfar), and the “Elves” more on Celtic sources (where they dovetailed more with the Sidhe). So Dwarves live in mountains, and Elves live in forests. Dwarves are renowned warriors, and Elves are tall and pretty.

The Dwarf has further been refined in the fantasy gaming genre, getting significant updates to the folklore in Dungeons & Dragons, and virtually every fantasy game on the market. Most of the Dwarven culture has been recreated from Tolkien's characters of Gimli and Thorin Oakenshield, both of whom were mighty warriors. However, in recent years, more works have gone back to some of the older works like Der Nibelung and Rumpelstiltskin, where dwarves can be mysterious and powerful sorcerers.

Elf

The Elf is taller than a normal human and has remarkably similar body proportions. They have less body hair, less body odors, and eat less than humans do. They have the ability to gain sustenance from eating grass, wood, or leaves, because they can digest cellulose into sugars without relying upon any bacteria. Elves have pointed ears and large irises that push the whites of their eyes to the very corner. Elves are long lived and graceful. Their ability to garner nutritional value from anything in a forest has left them with a profound ambivalence to civilization as a whole (and agriculture specifically), and most Elven camps are simply camps out in the woods or jungles somewhere. Elves are very obviously related to Drow, and indeed they share common heritage. Drow have a somewhat different metabolism from Elves, and while they can't seemingly survive on a die of sawdust, the Drow can breathe coal dust all day long and not get emphysema.

“Elf” is probably the best known word for “mythological human analogue” in the English language. In various sources, an “elf” might be tall or short, or any of the other things ascribed variously to dwarves, goblins, or men. However the primary source for the Elf is Tolkien's vision, which in turn was derived from mostly Celtic sources like the Sidhe and also some Norse influence from the Vanir. Tolkien's Elves were super humans, better at essentially all things than a human counterpart and gifted with what amounted to immortality. These traits have been scaled back severely over the years, mostly by the influence of games. A game relies upon a certain level of game balance between different players, so having one player get to have a character that is better at “everything” is just not acceptable. As such, as new fantasy games have been produced, the abilities of an Elf – including their signature longevity – has eroded time and time again. Where a writeup of Elves from the 1970s might claim that they lived “forever” or “for thousands of years” – the Elves of today are simply “long lived.”

Gith

The Gith are the descendants of humans who were enslaved outside of the world by the psychic Star Spawn for uncounted generations, used as a source of labor and food. They eventually won their freedom for themselves, and have waged a war across the stars against their brain eating former masters for generations. The Gith are a people scarred by slavery and war, and are implausibly stoic and incredibly violent. There is a taint of star magic on Gith and they tend to “phase out” both by losing track of conversations while paying attention to something else, and literally out of reality itself by shifting to the Astral reality and back.

Every part of Gith in folkloric origin comes from 20th century published literature. The term “Githyanki” comes from a book by George R. R. Martin called Dying of the Light that includes them as a race of psychic aliens who are enslaved to other, more powerful psychic aliens. They were subsequently written up by Charles Stross as specifically humans who were enslaved by psychic aliens and then rebelled. And they have been gradually expanded upon in Dungeons & Dragons literature. The Star Spawn who enslaved them are originally from Mythos books written by H. P. Lovecraft where the Star Spawn are the brain eating children of Great Cthulhu, and have the specific name Cthulhi to indicate their much reduced status from that of the High Priest of Azathoth who spawned them in the great underwater city of R'lyeh. Dungeons & Dragons picked up the Star Spawn and ran with them and called them “Mind Flayers” and eventually “Ilithid.”

Gnome

Gnomes are a small humanoid people with long fingers and long, claw-like fingernails. They have small eyes and rodent-like buck teeth. They look like people who are doing their level best to transform into moles and burrow away. And they do talk to moles and other rodents (they can also talk to marsupial moles, but it it is more difficult). Their hair gets into large tufts that are not always arranged for complete coverage. So a Gnome Man might go bald, but still have frizzy tufts on the sides and protruding from his lips like whiskers. Gnomes are creative and inveterate tinkers, and make all kinds of things. Gnome Women also have whiskers, but less hair in them so it doesn't look as much like a mustache. Gnomes don't see the world the way other people do, and usually rely upon sound and vibrations to “feel” their way through things, relying hardly upon their sight at all.

Gnomes are based on brownies and knockers, and well gnomes. They commonly appear in folklore as helpful spirits in homes, mines, and industries. There is basically a complete overlap between the source material for Gnomes and for Kobolds, and as is the way of these things when they get codified into game formats, the two have split up the concepts. In general, since “Gnome” is a Swiss word for a Cthonic spirit, and Kobold is a German word, the Gnomes end up getting most of the peaceful and clockwork making aspects, and Kobolds get most of the warlike aspects. Which is totally racist and unfair, but no one really cares if you make fun of the Swiss, so it's vaguely OK.

Goblin

The Goblins are small orange skinned humanoids with long arms and a stooped posture. They have sharp teeth and pointy ears. They look a lot like the monsters from Gremlins, but larger, with orange skin, and more likely to wear pants. Goblins are incredibly quiet, and often lope about on all fours like a chimp. Goblins have huge mouths and can easily imitate the baying of wolves. Goblins have a long understanding with Wargs and ride around on them regularly. Goblins are feral, sneaky, and uncommunicative. But they are not unintelligent, and use tools and are able to participate in society. Goblins have slit pupils and bulging eyes, making them look really intense, despite generally standing only 1.25m and spending a lot of time stooping.

“Goblin” is the catch-all term for “monster” with actual examples ranging from Gremlins to Bakemono to David Bowie. The Goblin is perhaps the most contentious position, because they are supposed to look scary, but what actually looks scary varies from person to person. Honestly, the Age of Wonders look for Goblins was chosen because that way they look like they are appropriately related Hobs (which of course they are), who in turn look like the coolest and most iconic Hobgoblin drawings – which are from Spiderman comics.

Golem

Golems are robots. They are roughly in the shape of humans, but they are made of some combination of clay, metal, wood, and stone. While they are remarkably resilient compared to flesh and blood humanoids, they are nowhere near as resilient (or heavy) as actual man-sized blocks of metal would be. This is because Golems are hollow and filled with clockwork, chemical tubes, runic engravings, or some other techno-magical mumbo jumbo that makes them function. Many Golems have no more idea what is on their insides than children do. It's not like they can extrapolate from the insides of bological lifeforms.

Golems are from Czech folklore and literature. There they are called Golems, Homunculi, and Robots. They are a similar story to Frankenstein's Monster, in that they are essentially people but are made by hands of artifice rather than born of mothers. They have become immensely more popular in fiction as the knowledge of what life is has disseminated to the general populace. Golems are an important race of synthetic creatures in the Discworld series, and robotic people are all over modern comics, movies, and stories. Iconic golem characters include Data from Star Trek, Ifurita from El Hazard, and C3PO from Star Wars. They've become important in RPGs as well, where in the various Star Wars games there are droids, World of Darkness came out with an entire Promethean line, and of course Dungeons & Dragons has recently jumped onto the bandwagon with the “Warforged.” They carry that name, because Gygax had already written them into a corner by making the actual things named Golems into giant animated statues, necessitating a new name for the man-sized artificial life.

Halfling

Halflings look like elves who happen to be only about a meter tall. They are thus somewhat more than half as tall as a Human or even an Elf. For their size they are remarkably strong, but they are mostly known for having fast metabolisms, insatiable curiosity, and quick tongues. Halflings get hungry quickly, get bored quickly, come up with witty insults quickly, and run quickly for their small stature. It's like Halflings experience time differently than other humanoids. Halflings are friendly and likeable, and are frequently motivated by a strong sense of justice. Villainous Halflings frequently have the same motivations – the difference between wanting to even the scales and wanting to take other peoples' stuff is mostly just a matter of perspective.

The origins of the Halfling as a major RPG concept is undoubtedly Tolkien's Hobbits. We don't call them Hobbits because we are legally forbidden from doing so, because Tolkien's estate still owns that word (Tolkien made it up), but since he didn't make up “Halfling” we (and by “we” I mean “the entire fantasy genre”) have been using that term instead. And because of that fact, Halflings have become a lot less like Hobbits over the years. Everyone knew that Halflings were supposed to be good thieves and rogues, because that's pretty much what Bilbo Baggins did. And so while Bilbo Baggins was basically completely unlike a “normal” Halfling in that setting, the kinds of traits that would be good in a rogue have been standardized in the race. Rather than having Halflings be fat, insular, and complacent, they have become outgoing, athletic, and proactive. They are, in short, nothing at all like the Hobbits in Tolkien's works – although the original seed of inspiration is plainly visible. Little people who steal stuff is the story seed, and that's from The Hobbit, but the changes made to make that a normal thing instead of a one-in-the-world special character are basically total. Halflings just aren't a standing metaphor for the nobility and tragic complacence of the English Yeomen anymore, they are a metaphor for “the little guy” fighting back at the “big world.” As such, they borrow hardly anything at all from any of the “little people” in fairy stories. They aren't Leprechauns, they are the revolutionary proletariat.

Hob

Hobs are large humanoids who look like goblins would if they were the size of a large man. They have sharp teeth, orange skin, red eyes, and pointy ears. They look in many ways like a scaled up Goblin, both in terms of being physically taller and also standing much straighter. Like Goblins, Hobs are very quiet, but the general air of a Hob tends to portray that trait more as politeness than sneakiness. Hobgoblin society is classically very polite and restrained – Hob etiquette is exacting and convoluted. Hobs have a well deserved reputation for carefulness and perfectionism. Hobs are frequently concerned with martial valor and honor, as well as social propriety.

Hob is short for “hobgoblin” and those are a classic type of fey folk. The most famous hobgoblin in history is the shapeshifter Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream. In their original conception they are tiny tricksters, which is especially interesting because in today's folklore the hobgoblin is exactly the opposite, being a larger and more “serious” than regular goblins. This reversal of fortunes comes from a combination of errors and dramatic necessity. The question of size is merely confusion on the part of Tolkien when he wrote The Hobbit. In that book he calls his orcs “goblins” and the bigger nastier ones are hobgoblins for emphasis. This error actually so embarrassed him that in the later LotR books he stopped using the word “goblin” pretty much altogether. However, later fantasy authors took a lot of inspiration from The Hobbit, and in the absence of conflicting sources, the bigger hobgoblins pretty much stuck. The evolution of hobgoblins from Puck to the iconic sharp toothed avatars of seriousness is a little more complicated. See, being disrespectful is something that requires and expectation of respect to even be noticeable. That is, Costello's antics are not funny without Abbot there to get annoyed. So in order to set up the kinds of jokes that prankstering requires, hobgoblins had have the kinds of formal social situations that those need. And so, since every time hobgoblins showed up, there were rigid social structures, they became associated with those very structures in peoples' minds that. That is, the hobgoblin has gradually become their own foil.

That the modern Hobgoblin specifically has orange skin can be laid at the feet of Spiderman comics. Spiderman had a villain named the Green Goblin who was very important to the story. So when they made a spin-off character to be a new villain they made the “Hobgoblin” to fill that space. And since that was an age of comic printing when they could reasonably expect to have secondary colors come out right (and had only recently acquired that ability, which is why the older Superman is Red, Yellow, and Blue and the younger Hulk is Green and Purple), the character's main choices for colors were Green, Purple, and Orange. Since he was supposed to be distinguishable from the Green Goblin (who was of course green), it was basically a coin-flip to make him primarily purple or orange – or would have been if it wasn't for the act that an orange hobgoblin looks much better than a purple one throwing pumpkin bombs at things.

Human

The Human of fantasy literature is just like the modern human. That's an important consideration, because they are not much like the humans of medieval times. When people think of Humans in the context of a fantasy world, they think in terms not only of the physical size of a modern human (apparently fantasy humans can reliably get 2000 Calories a day while they are growing), but they also judge them by the modern moral zeitgeist. While true medieval and iron age humanity seemed pretty much OK with genocide and similar crimes against other nations, if humans do that kind of thing in fantasy adventures, they are capital-E Evil. Humans can breed freely with Elves, Orcs, Gith, and Cambions. While the child is technically a “Half-Orc” or whatever, game mechanically they just end up using the game mechanics for one or the other and use their mixed parentage in order to have a more convoluted backstory.

Kobold

Kobolds a small humanoids (a meter or less tall), who have dog-like voices and faces and have scaly skin. They yip like wounded dogs and are smaller than the other “standard” humanoid races. They are tunnelers and artificers of such skill that they rival the Dwarves and Gnomes (in those professions respectively), and are adept at magic. He scales of a Kobold are usually bright blue, and sometimes they develop little horns that have been described as “sinister” and “adorable.” The iconic riding animal of the Kobold people is the giant weasel.

Kobold is an ancient word that is basically interchangeable for the words “goblin” or “gnome.” There are stories of kobolds who carry away bad little children and stories of kobolds who are helpful house spirits that chase away vermin in exchange for gifts of milk and cheese. It is a Germanic word, and the explanations for why you don't see them are generally that they can turn invisible, or transform into various animals. The modern conceptualization as a tiny man with monstrous features is undoubtedly the direct influence of Dungeons & Dragons. When Gary Gygax wrote them up, they simply had features of animals that hunted rats, rather than having magical powers to transform themselves into such beasts. And the idea of Kobolds as yipping, scaled humanoids turned out to have so much traction that many people today don't have any idea that the classic kobold had a human form to revert to. And that's fine, there are plenty of creatures in the sink with a human form. The scales of a Kobold are literally Cobalt Blue, because Cobalt is named after the Kobolds that supposedly live in the mines it was discovered in.

Orc

Orcs are big, strong, and imposing. They have hearty immune systems, and tusks. They tend to want to eat more meat and less vegetable products than humans, but biologically they probably count as humans, because they can produce nonsterile offspring with human mates – and they do sometimes. Compared to humans, Orcs look more like gorillas than humans do. They are larger, have longer arms proportionately, are hairier, and have much bigger teeth. Like Humans, they are recognizably apes. Orcs are considered more emotional and less civilized than humans, but it's not entirely clear how much that has to do with them coming from swamps and wild lands where they drive herds of swine and hunt and raid for food. Orcs appear as both honorable savages and vicious savages. The signature riding beast of the Orcs is the riding boar.

The word “orc” is an Old-English word for “foreigner” or “monster-man.” And you've never heard that word in that context, because no one speaks Old English at the dinner table any more. The reason why you know what Orcs are is because the word was used in Tolkien's LotR books after he decided that he wanted to stop using the word “goblin.” Thematically, Orcs draw upon a wide variety of monstrous humanoids from Norwegian Trolls to Indic Rakshasa to French Ogres. But while that explains the whole thing where they are big, strong, and betusked, the part where they can breed with humans is largely the fault of Tolkien's racism (where making half-orcs was some sort of symbol of society degenerating or something). Although to be perfectly honest: Rakshasa have half-human offspring all the time in Hindu stories, so it's not like we can't move on and have the half orc as a reasonably respectable thing that doesn't make us feel bad. Orcs in Warhammer and -Craft have green skin in order to show that they are totally different from humans. Our Orcs do not, and instead have skin tones that you might find on a human (or a pig, if you'd prefer). This is because they do breed with humans, which makes them look a lot more like the Chronopia Orcs than the Warhammer ones. In general, the Chronopia Orcs are a pretty good place to start, since the Tolkienian ones were supposed to look like East Asians and on that basis be hideous. And modern society would like to move past that description, because it makes us really uncomfortable. So they are large, hairy, have big mouths, and huge teeth, but they do not look like “Mongoloids.” Orcs are not a metaphor for Black people or Asian people. At least, not anymore.

Additional Occupants of the Sink

Are there only 13 races in a kitchen sink setting? Hell no. There are hundreds. But you're only going to get around to a couple dozen races into any campaign at the outside (and let's face it: it's entirely possible to play a whole campaign, even in a kitchen sink setting, where all the player characters are humans and all the NPCs are also humans). This means that the chances of any particular race seeing any kind of development in any particular game is close to zero. And that's good for crossovers. It means that if you've had a big campaign setpiece involving some race or another and you go to another game, you are relatively unlikely to run into the same race. And you can often reuse the material you developed cooperatively in one campaign with another group of players and you'll look really creative. In short, the fact that there are so many races that you'll never get to them all actually protects you and everyone else at the table from cognitive dissonance. A world with over a hundred true breeding sapient, tool using species may not make any logical sense, but it can make great dramatic sense.

It is important to note that any any time you can introduce a previously unmentioned subrace. That is, while it may be that the Naga are not the race you need for a story, or have been burdened with baggage from a previous encounter that would make them unsuitable, you can always bring in a new kind of Naga that has different traits relevant to the story. Sometimes these are as simple as palette swaps. That is, you might have “Black Scale” or “Golden Scale” Nagas, who are basically just the same Nagas but painted a different color, justifying them to have a different backstory or power list – or both. Sometimes it' something slightly more substantial, such as “Rattler Nagas” who have a rattle snake rattle at the end of their tails and are therefore presumably different in some way.

• Beast Men
• Gnoll The Gnoll was originally from a Lord Dunsany short story about a man who stole a bunch of gems from ill-defined monster people. Originally spelled “Gnole” the spelling of “Gnoll” comes from a typographical error by Gary Gygax. Originally described n D&D as a cross between Gnomes and Trolls, and blessed with some spectacularly bad art in the early days, no one really cared about Gnolls one way or the other until they got a badass hyena-man makeover in the late 80s. That has had a lot of traction and now “everyone knows” that Gnolls have Hyena heads.
• Minotaur Originally from Greek myth as the result of intercourse between a human woman and a powerful but wicked cow, Minotaurs are large humans with bull parts. In ages past they had human faces and cow bodies, but the modern conception gives them bull heads and human bodies. They are able to use axes that way and look a lot more threatening.
• Yak Folk Found first in Tibetan mythology as messengers of gods, Yak-People were brought to the attention of fantasy gamers by D&D's Al Quaddim setting.
• Satyrs Greek fertility spirits, Satyrs have human torsos and goat legs. They also have ram horns sprouting from otherwise human heads. They are portrayed in many stories and games as remarkable musicians and lovers.
• Pan The Pan are goat headed beast men from the Mediterranean. They appear as “Broo” in Runequest and “Ibixians” in Dungeons & Dragons. They are the most frequently drawn “beast man.”
• Centaurs Centaurs are greek Horses with a human torso instead of a horse's neck. They vary wildly in size.
• Naga The Naga are serpent/human mixes that hail from Hindu and Buddhist mythology. How much human and how much snake they have varies wildly on source. The D&D Naga has a human head and the rest of the body of a snake, while the Etherlords Naga has a whole human torso and the lower parts of a snake. The Heroes of Might and Magic Naga goes a step farther than that and has multiple sets of human arms to go with its human torso – and in case you were wondering, all of those can find matches in ancient Vedic paintings.
• Ophidians The word “Ophidian” just means “snake” and so various snake people have born that moniker in countless books and games.
• Glycons From the Macedonian, they are giant snakes with human heads. The historical Glycons were probably hand puppets used by Macedonian prophets to scare people.
• Lamia A different woman-with-a-snake-for-legs. They eat babies and give birth to ghastly monsters. The same name gets used as humans with tauric leopard lower parts for no particular reason in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Medusae Women with snakes growing out of their head who can turn people to stone with their gaze. From the Greek. Sometimes shown with the lower parts of a snake, and sometimes with human legs.
• Serpent Folk Most specifically from the Conan stories, the Serpent People have fangs and poison bites and long slithery tails. They have arms, and usually feet too, but snake bodies and heads.
• Badgerfolk These appear in D&D as Armand, and Warcraft as Wolvar. And in Bread and Jam for Francis.
• Balu These appear as Panzerbjorn in the Golden Compass, and of course thousands of years of Hindu mythology. Since they look exactly like bears, a case can be made that they are not beastmen, but the idea is the same.
• Bandar The monkey people appear throughout Hindu and Buddhist literature, and they get shout-outs in all kinds of games and modern fiction – usually under that name because it was in The Jungle Book. Honestly, it's not at all obvious what is so special about a “monkey that is like a human” since humans are a kind of monkey, but the concept has traction. Monkeys are awesome.
• Nezumi These are rat people. They are most specifically Japanese, but smilar things show up all over the world. They appear in the Warhammer fantasy universe as the Skaven.
• Kitsune These are people – usually sexy ladies – who are foxes in the literal sense. They have fox tails, and often fox ears. This makes them essentially Cat Girls, which means that they are a green light, a rarity among beastmen for those not wishing to indulge furry tendencies.
• Lapins Humanoid rabbit people. Sometimes they are portrayed as tricksters (like Bugs), and sometimes as very serious (like the White Rabbit).
• Nekomusume The oft contemplated cat girls of Japanese mythology, these have appeared basically everywhere, including of course Thundercats and Cheetah from Wonder Woman comics. They've even graced the covers of D&D materials as the Catfolk (and about a billion others in Dragon Magazine and various home brew).
• Frog Folk These are humanoid frogs, and come from the folklore of Ohio (where it is called “The Loveland Frog”) and Connecticut. The most famous Frog Folk is Kermit. Versions of Frog Folk appeared in Dungeons & Dragons as the Bullywug and the much smaller Grippli, and in Everquest as the Froglok.
• Taweret Hippo headed people from Egypt, they were brought in to Dungeons & Dragons as a race of space mercenaries called the Giff.
• Lizard Folk The Lizardfolk are large reptilian humanoids who live in swamps. They are most specifically from South Carolina folk lore, and appear (often as “Lizard Men”) in basically every fantasy setting you can imagine.
• Cherufe The Cherufe are a Chilean legend of reptilian humanoids who live in volcanoes and have extremely hot skin. They appear in Dungeons & Dragons as Fire Newts.
• Salamanders Similar to a Lamia, but specifically on fire, the Salamander hails from bizarre misunderstandings of biology by Romans.
• Draconians They are the same kind of idea as the Lizard Folk, but they have wings that may allow them to fly and can usually breathe fire.
• Sauruses These are dinosaur people nominally, but they usually look more like big alligator headed humans with thick scales and stubby tails. They appear all over the place, but they are perhaps most importantly found in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, because that way there's an appropriate model for them.
• Lemurians Ancient lizard people from a lost continent that use strange magic crystals and do things in inexplicable ancient ways, these guys are originally from the hallucinogenically racist tirades of Blavatsky, but are nonetheless important because they were reused in Land of the Lost as the Sleestak.
• Tengu Part human, part raven, all trickster and totally disrespectful. Tengu are shown with anything from raven heads to human faces with sharp noses. The name is from Japanese nd is also transliterated as “Kenku.” Appears both ways as possibly different creatures in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Yazata Humans with bird wings. Originally from Zoroastrian mythology. They are the descendants of the Amesha Spenta. They appear in Dominions as Caelians, and in Dungeons & Dragons as Raptorans.
• Harpies Human heads (and often arms and breasts) on a bird chassis, in classical Greek literature they often have similar or identical singing powers to sirens. Are pretty similar to Garudas in Buddhist lore.
• Coleopterids Also called the “beetle folk,” these are a race of humanoid beetles from the future that are from H. P. Lovecraft's Mythos.
• Chuhukon From Hopi mythology, the Chuhukon are ant-people that live underground. They are pretty much interchangeable for the Bugrom from El-Hazard.
• Myrmidons Another Ant-based humanoid, this time from Macedonia. Myrmidons are highly warlike and fight in close formation. They are similar to a non-extradimensional Formian from Dungeons & Dragons.
• Broucci From Czech literature, the Broucci are another beetle people, but they are small, fly, and glow.
• Phraint Written up by the now deceased author of Arduin, the Phraints are man-sized mantis people. They were later called the “Thri-Kreen” in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Jorogumo Tauric spider people from Japanese mythology. In Dungeons & Dragons, they appear as “Driders.”
• Amak Humanoid walruses. Originally from Aleutian folklore. Appear in Lewis Carrol as deceptive tricksters and in Warcraft as the “Tuskarr.”
  
  Aquatic Beast Races
• Merfolk Human torso, fish tail. The tail may or may not be transformable into legs. Usually encountered as “Mermaids” and common enough as a trope to get their own Disney movie.
• Tritons Like Merfolk, but with two leg-like fish tails instead of one.
• Ponaturi Vicious sea-dwelling shark men who come onto land and steal people to take to their undersea homes. Originally from Maori folklore, they appear in Dungeons & Dragons as the Sahuagin.
• Kappa The Kappa are Japanese turtle men. Traditionally possessed of a dish of water on their head that they draw power from, they sometimes appear in a more biological form, looking more like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They even classically know a great number of Karate techniques, and are therefore predisposed to being ninjas.
• Deep Ones Deep Ones are from H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos books. They are degenerate fishmen who can crossbreed with humans somehow and have offspring that breath water. They are humanoids have fish features and slimy skin. They appear in Dungeons & Dragons as the Kuo-Toa.
• Linxia These are giant prawns that are employed as soldiers by the Dragon Kings in Chinese and Japanese lore. They look basically like the Prawn in District 9 and a similar concept with inexplicable paralyzing tentacles showed up in Dungeons & Dragons as the Chuul.
• Pangxie These are warlike crab people who work for the Dragon Kings in Chinese Mythology. Crab people also appear in Dungeons & Dragons as the Yurian.
• Icthyds Humanoid bodies with large fish heads, these creatures are often brought in as a figure of comedy because they are much less sexy than mermaids. They appear in Dungeons & Dragons as Locathah.
• Atlanteans Humanoid aquatic creatures with a distinctly frog-like caste to their features, Atlanteans are only tangentially related to the Platonic novel of the same name. They are from an underwater city that usually hasn't so much “sunken” as “was built under water.” These are major creatures – under this name even – in Dominions and Masters of the Universe (the archetypical example being Mer-Man).

Adding some Monstrous Humanoids. Those are things that are basically just like the other humanoids except that for whatever reason they show up in the Monster Manual. This is either because they are generally anti-civilization (and thus make better monsters than players), or because they are generally tougher than normal starting PCs (and nothing with a level minimum gets in the PHB). Often both.

• Monstrous Humanoids
• Egbere Tree dwelling dwarves who are big on poison and small on hospitality. Yoruba.
• Chiruwi Half Invisible and extremely violent humanoids. African.
• Blemmyes Headless humanoid maneaters with faces on their chest as described by Pliny the Elder. Supposedly from Africa somewhere. They appear in the Ultima games as “Headless.”
• Boggles Kind of like a Kobold, but with a smoother skin and a nastier disposition.
• Bogarts Like a Gnome, but totally flipped out on rage and blessed with sharp teeth and tusks.
• Hiisi Little, noisy Finnish monster men who dress in elk pelts and waylay travelers.
• Troglodytes Blind, tunnel dwelling cannibals. Appear in D&D as “Grimlocks”
• Dunters Also called Redcaps, these Scottish monster men weigh themselves down heavily with iron and go on murder rampages until brought down.
• Bugbears Larger relatives of Goblins and Hobs. The word “Bugbear” is an English one that means roughly the same thing as “Hobgoblin” but Dungeons & Dragons settled them as being specifically larger back when all the humanoid races were ranked by level equivalent. They are larger than Hobs, and at least as feral as Goblins, but they are clearly a related species. As disturbingly quiet as their kin.
• Gremlins All of the destructive habits of a Goblin, none of the table manners, and absolutely none of the quiet. Also, green.
• Sluagh Dirty, hungry creatures that smell death and follow it around in caravans just to watch. Creepy as hell. Scottish.
• Imilozi Shadowy creatures who only speak in whistles. Zulu.
• Intulo Wicked giant Kobolds with black scales. And we mean giant for Kobolds, so pretty much Human or Hob sized. Zulu.
• Kaka-Guie A race of cannibalistic slavers with buffalo heads that steal women and corpses. Ivory Coast.
• Nburu Monstrous people from the woods who wear animal parts as armor. Congo.
• Mujina Little fanged men with claws that do mischief. Japanese/Hawaiian.
• Bakemono A lot like Hobs, but generally nastier. Thus, they are best considered as a fellow Goblinoid in approximately the Bugbear weight class. Japanese.
• Gargoyles Hideous winged people who are made of stone. Pan-European.
• Doppelgangers Humanoids who can change their shape to appear as other humanoids and mimic specific other people. German.
• Ghouls Humanoids who eat corpses and generally make a nuisance of themselves.
• Ghasts Degenerate humanoids who hop around like kangaroos, tunnel like gophers, and eat humanoid corpses. Talk by “meeping.” Mythos.
• Tcho-Tcho Nasty, hairless Gnomes. They appear in D&D as Svirfneblin, and are from the Mythos material by H. P. Lovecraft.

Anyway, there are a lot of public domain fairies.

• Fey
• Huldra A seductive forest spirit from Norway
• Naiad Female personifications of bodies of water.
• Nakki A deadly water dwelling lady from Finnish folklore that fears light.
• Nixie A water sprite.
• Nymph A spirit lady from a body of water.
• Oread The personification of a mountain or stone.
• Pixie A tiny flying humanoid fairy. Exemplified by Tinkerbell from Peter Pan. Not very similar to the comparatively huge Pixies in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Sprite Small flying fairies that can turn invisible. Roughly equivalent to the Dungeons & Dragons Pixie.
• Myconid Trippy walking mushroom people, originally from Dungeons & Dragons, but liberally stolen all over the place, appearing in Final Fantasy and Castlevania games under that name.
• Dryad Elf women who are spiritually connected to a tree.
• Treant Sapient, walking trees. Basically the same as Tolkien's “Ents” but called Treants to avoid legal problems.
• Sirins Women whose song lures people, often to their deaths. May transform into or have traits of an animal, generally a fish, a song bird, or an owl depending upon whether you're dealing with a Mediterranean or Russian version.
• Yakshas Glorious to behold, and physically large humanoids who have power over earth, water, and wood. Formiddabe warriors. Hindu.
• Apsaras Beautiful dancing people made out of cloud-stuff. Hindu.
• Gandharvas Handsome musician nature spirits. Also formidable warriors. Hindu.
• Yuki Ona Pretty women made out of snow. Japanese
• Tuatha Basically like an Elf, but more badass in exchange for fearing iron. Celtic.
• Brownie Tiny, largely helpful people. Like Gnomes, but way smaller.
• Lutin Smallish, winged people. French.
• Leprechauns Warwick Davis. Irish.
• Tylwyth Teg By all appearances, golden children who shed light. Very trickstery, and shockingly stealthy for something that is practically on fire. Welsh.
• Inari Androgynous fairy folk who talk to animals and make rice grow. Japanese.
• Korrigans Goblins who can transform themselves while the sun is not shining. British.
• Ga-Gorib Contemptuous ogre people who can telekinetically control stones, even in mid flight. Khoikhoi.
• Hunesai Fairy people who protect streams and plant life. Kind of like Loraxes. Witoto.
• Huntin Tree Spirits. Xhosa.
• Inkosazana Female fairies that make corn grow. Zulu.
• Katavi Malevolent water spirits with a frightening appearance. Tanzanian.
• Medr Androgynous Ethiopian Earth spirits.
• Ombwiri Like Hobs, but with bone-white skin. Can turn invisible. Adopt villages and protect them. Central Africa.
• Anansi Trickster spider people who can pass for Drow. Yoruba.
• Kodama Tree Spirits that sound like deathwatch beetles and look like little clay statues. Japanese.

Giants
A thing to note about Giants is that they often simply shrink from one generation to another. For some, this is simply a matter of the creatures growing throughout their lives like trees, a Cloud Gian'ts son will never reach his height as long as the father still lives. But for others, there is jut some raw power that isn't inherited genetically, at least, not always. The Rimtursar are frickin titanic, while their children the Nifel Giants are merely extremely large, and their children the Jotun are merely big.

• Troll Big of stature and disproportionately long of nose, trolls of today generally heal super fast because that's how they were written in Three Hearts and Three Lions. Germanic.
• Ogre Big and cruel and hungry, the Ogre is perhaps the classic giant that could plausibly fit into your house. French.
• Stone Giants Tremendous men with stonelike skin. Appear in legends all over the world. They have a penchant for stone throwing and catching in Dungeons & Dragons because they were written that way in Tolkien.
• Cloud Giants The huge men who hail from castles in the clouds. They appear in such German stories as The Valiant Tailor and Jack and the Beanstalk.
• Jotun More manageably sized giants that are descended from Nifel or Muspel giants. While still being resistant to cold or heat, they no longer are surrounded by radiation of that kind of temperature. Norse.
• Nifel Giants Blue skinned giants descended from the Rimtursar. They are accompanied by a fearful wind of deathly cold. Often try to steal summer so that the Rimtursar can come back. Norse.
• Rimtursar Ancient titans made out of Ice from the time before time. They spawned the Nifel Giants, and were banished from the world. Norse.
• Muspel Giants Muspel Giants are fire giants who are descended from Surtr. They have back skin and can bring forth flames on their bodies or their weapons. Roughly equivalent to Nifel Giants in strength. Norse.
• Anakim Large people descended from the Rephaim, but with more human features.
• Ettins Hideous Giants with two heads. The name is originally a corruption of “Jotun” into English, but the two heads thing is from C.S.Lewis.
• Rephaim 4 meter tall (and more) giants that speak in an insectile drone. They are consumate necromancers, and may of them are undead. Jewish.
• Emim Numerous and terrifying giants, descendants of the Rephaim. Jewish.
• Asura Huge, fanged giants from the time before time, usually with red or black skin. Hindu.
• Titans Enormous and sometimes monstrous giants from the time before time. Greek
• Dakini Large, red skinned women who fly and collect humanoid skulls. Buddhist.
• Fomori Hideously deformed giants. Celtic mythology.
• Gugs Shaggy giants with sideways mouths. From H.P.Lovecraft.
• Drekavac Gaunt giants that kill with a terrifying scream. Serbian mythology.
• Cyclops One eyed giants. Greek.
• Daityas Red and gold giants with strange magic powers. Hindu.
• Danavas Ocean dwelling, red skinned giants. Hindu.
• Centimani Tremendous giants with one hundred hands. Roman (see also: Ravana from Hinduism)
• Oni Big, horned, savage, gluttonous, and slothful ogres from Japanese mythology.
• Si-te-Cah Red haired, cannibalistic giants who use magic to control grass. Paiute mythology.
• Kapres Large shaggy ogres that can pass through wood like a human can pass through air. Philippine mythology.
• Jentilak Huge, hairy giants that throw stones and even themselves tremendous distances. They build castles out of stone because they can control where stones go. Basque.
• Dispodes Colossal people who are depressive libertines even by French standards.
• Fir Bolg Big red haired people. Celtic mythology.
• Dai Bakemono Big goblins. Like a giant that was a big Goblin instead of a big human. Japanese.
• Sasquatch Big furry humanoids that live in the woods. American Folklore.
• Yeti Big, white furred humanoids that live in the snowy mountains. Tibetan Folklore.

Templates

One of the things that happens in the world of the kitchen sink is that creatures (usually humanoids, but whatever) get transformed into other things. Often these are things that happens after being killed and coming back from the dead to feast on the living. But they can also be gifted to someone either through personal advancement or curses.

[*]Pennangalan Someone who can, with the power of evil magic, have their head and entrails detach from their body and fly around murdering people. This can be an external curse or the Pennangalan's own ace in the hole. South East Asian.
[*]Lich Someone who kills themselves in order to live forever as an animated corpse with vast evil magic powers. The term is actually coined as that concept by Gary Gygax, as the word Lich is just an archaic English term meaning “corpse.” But there's no reason that corpses can't be wizards, so it's public domain now.
[*]Lycanthrope A curse, special power, or disease where a humanoid transforms into a monstrous beast of some kind. May also have a beastman hybrid form. Popular forms are wolf, rat, tiger, boar, bear, and seal. Universal.
[*]Ghost Disembodied Spirits. Could go the D&D route and differentiate all the words that mean exactly the same thing as “Ghost” as separate creatures: Wraith, Spirit, Spectre, Shade, Apparition, Onryo, etc..
[*]Tlahuelpuchi The magical transformation that allows one to chop their own feet off and fly around (being no longer attached to the Earth). Generally involves drinking the blood of children. Aztec.
[*]Banshee Lost and Damned souls who run around screaming people to death. Celtic.
[*]Civetateo Women who die in childbirth and then come back to life as weeping, baby eating monsters. Aztec. Called “La Llorona” in modern Mexican Spanish.
[*]Vampire The one and only.
[*]Wendigo Granted great strength and magic powers (and white fur) by eating the flesh of humanoids, the Wendigo is now also cursed to keep eating more humanoids. North Western First Nations.
[*]Asema Someone who has gotten the ability to take their skin off like a suit of clothing, revealing a flying ball of blue fire. Kind of like across between Pennangalan and Willowisp. Surinam.
[*]Liderec Someone who has taken for themselves the power to transform themselves into a black chicken that steals hope and strength from other humanoids and creates bad dreams. Hungarian.
[*]Strigoi Someone who uses demonic magic to become insubstantial and curse people. Romanian.
[*]Kukuthi A multi-stage Saiyan Vampire Analog that can leave their graves for longer and longer periods of time and eventually super saiyan out and turn into genies. Albanian.
[*]Mummy A specially preserved corpse that comes back as a warrior or a magician or both. Egyptian, but also Chinese and Aztec.
[*]Zombie Slow Zombies. Also Fast Zombies. Basically a whole cloth creation of 20th century cinema.
[*]Skeleton There have been lots of animated Skeletons in lore. But they are a staple of modern fantasy because of the works of Ray Harryhausen.
[*]Obayifo A wizard who can spit their soul out in the form of discrete globes of solid darkness that fly around and steal the strength from victims and bring it back to the Obayifo. Also cause Coco blight. Ashanti.
[*]Cauldron Born Corpses that have been boiled into being mighty reanimate warriors. Irish.
[*]Bog Mummy Like regular mummy, but preserved by having been staked into a peat bog rather than pickled in a dusty tomb. Nordic, Celtic, and Russian.
[*]Goryo Basically the same thing as a Revenant. Someone gets murdered and they return from the grave to kick ass and take names. May be brought back by a crow. May or may not be played by Brandon Lee. Universal.
[*]Hupia The returned wicked spirits of badass mortals who steal children in order to reincarnate themselves by kicking the original spirit out of the child's body and living again that way. May have lived several lifetimes in this manner. Central American.
[*]Durahan Basically the headless horseman. Actually, exactly the headless horseman, since the monster in Sleepy Hollow is a Durahan.
[*]Mohan Someone who has mastered the ancient technique of kidnapping women and molesting them in order to take control of an army of animated trees. Columbian.
[*]Larva Like giant maggots made out of the souls of dead people that can subsequently hatch into awesome monsters. Roman.
[*]Kresnik Half dragon people with cute little dragon wings just behind their arm pits. Think Dragon Half. They have various powers, including the ability to spot vampires. Croatian.
[/list]

[Judging__Eagle]

Dead Man's Hand Stuff, part 1
======
The Peoples of the World

"Everywhere I've been, and I've been to a lot of places, I ain't never seen something as weird looking as you."

The West is rapidly filling up with settlers from all over the world. The open range is a free-for-all among many interest groups. While the Union declares that it is manifest destiny that it should all fall into their hands, there are still many who simply plumb do not agree. With the natives on the way out and resources up for grab it's no wonder that adventure seeking folks the world over have a hankering to go out West.

The Alfar
"Of course it looks expensive, I made it."

The Alfar are short of stature and tedious of demeanor. Alfar have skin which is colored as the sky is colored, though mostly they are pigmented as a painting of dusk or night scenes. Standing just 1.1m tall, the average svartalf has night black skin (seriously, with little stars and everything) and pupil-less eyes.

Alfheim and Niðavellir have only recently become independent nations, and many of the Alfar have diasporaed across the world. Ill treated by the Ifrit sultans, Svartalf culture has largely turned to science and the busy hands of the Svartalfar have made most of the spell engines which power civilization.

The dwarves of Alfheim are famous as mechanics, magicians, artisans, and builders. Their attention to detail is second to none, though their plodding gait and irascible mien oft discourage commerce with others. Still, a number of Alfar have taken their legendary skills out West where the demand is strong. And it is very strong.

Inspiration: Germans, Bohemians, Jews

The Ifrit
"Fire burns all things. It burns grass and homes, wood and flesh. It burns in my veins. It can burn your veins too."

The Ifrit are a people literally descended from smokeless fire. Easily identifiable by their metallic skin and burning spit and tears, Ifrit stand an imposing 1.9m tall. All Ifrit can see through fire as if it was clear, though smoke or coal is opaque to them.

A proud race, the Sultan of the Ifrit in Madrid was once granted dominion of all the West by the High Pontiff. Ifrit conquistadors conquered the entire reach from the Golden Kingdom to the Silver Empire and set up a brutal system of Missions across the Western reaches of the New World while holding lands in the Old World as far north as Vanheim and as far east as Alfheim. But of late, the flame of the Ifrit has sputtered and dimmed. The Sultan of the old world suffered terrible defeats to both the United Provinces of Vanheim and Tír na nÓg. Worse still, holdings in the New World have broken free and declared themselves as a myriad of quarrelsome sultanates and republics. The Burning Empire is now little more than a smoldering memory.

Remnants of the Burning Empire are still quite evident in the West. The priestly Missions are the only civilization in much of the farthest reaches. Ifrit Rancheros still run a great deal of cattle on the range – their land grants from the Sultan worthless paper but their burning sabers leave quite a mark.

Ifrit can interbreed with any people, and lands controlled by Ifrit have remarkably elaborate rules governing the status of those people with various amounts of non-Ifrit blood.

Inspiration: Spaniards, Mexicans.

The Loci
"I love these flowers. They are a part of me."

Loci, whether male or female are very beautiful. Each loci is tied to a tree, a rock, a spring, or some other geographical feature. Because Loci have such a strong tie to terrain, they don't travel as much as other peoples, with the notable exception of Oceanids who sail all over the place and thereby give the entire people a reputation for wanderlust which is entirely undeserved.

Both the High Pontiff and the Eastern Patriarch are Loci. Yet in the Old World there is no major political entity that speaks for Loci people. Most of the formerly independent Loci city states are now the property of the Sun King of the Sidhe. As a result, displaced Dryads are attempting to make for themselves a new life in the New World.


Inspiration: Italians, Greeks.

Coming Soon: The Sidhe (both the Tir Sidhe and the Court of the Sun King); the Lutin (also of the Sun Court); the Vanir (the conquerors of the sea from Vanheim and the barbarous Van from Helheim); the Jotun; the Deep Ones (from R'lyeh); the Skriatok (of the Winter Court), the Duszek (also of the Winter Court), and of course the
Natives:Buffalo People; Wendigo; Mikumwess; Maizenians; Kachina.

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

part 2
==========
Continued...

The Sidhe
"Ride into the sunset? I am the sunset."

The Sidhe come from the far west of the Old World, and usually have hair as yellow as the sun of noon or red as the sun of dusk. Sidhe average 1.5m in height, and cast no shadows.

Sidhe flesh burns in contact with iron, and perhaps as a result the Sidhe are known far and wide as master craftsmen in silver, copper, and wood. Sidhe breathe in a continuous stream in and out and this is easily mistaken for them not breathing at all. Sidhe bodies have no striated muscle in them, and as a result Sidhe can stand in any position virtually indefinitely without growing tired.

While Sidhe peoples live throughout the West of the Old World, from the Burning Empire to Vanheim, the nations which are truly Sidhe dominated are the Kingdom of the Sun King on the mainland, and the islands of Tir na nOg. The Sun King demands all of his subjects bend knee to the high pontiff, while the Queen of the Emerald Islands demands that her subjects do not do so. These edicts have brought the Sun King into confrontation with Tir on several occasions, as well as with Vanheim and even his own Lutin subjects. Neither the Sun King nor the high pontiff have much power in the West, though they stand tall in alliance in the Old World.

Inspiration: British, French, Irish

The Vanir
"i'm looking for a man."

The Vanir are an aloof and musically inclined people known for seamanship, swordsmanship, and austerity. A somber and precise people, the average Van stands 1.8m tall. Vanir are quite flammable but they don't have blood and do not bleed when cut.

Most Vanir have long since rebelled against the High Pontiff and Burning Empire, and there are now independent nations of Van all over the Old World. The United Provinces of Vanheim and the Helheim Republic are both relatively non-interventionist republics that are quite wealthy and powerful. Van colonies make up a significant fraction of the segments of Union territories and many of those who go out West from the Union are Vanir.

All Vanir have perfect pitch, but most of them subscribe to religious views which discourage song and dance. The stereotypical Van is both flat of affect and exacting of tone – making them persuasive and unnerving.

Inspiration: Nederlanders, Belgians, Burgundians

The Jotun
"Do you wish to anger me little man!?"

The Jotun stand an impressive 3m tall and are almost as shaggy as wolves. Jotun can stand any amount of cold, and their mere presence chills the air. In the West, Jotun are forced to wear heavy furs during the height of summer to keep the heat off of their bodies to stave off a painful softening of their flesh.

Jotun traditionally drink heavily, and their men grow long and scraggly beards. Where once they were feared as warriors across the Old World, the time of the Jotun has mostly passed. The advancement of the gun has largely outpaced the manifest size and strength of the mighty Jotun hirdmen. The Jotun are now largely a figure of fun in popular literature and the Jotun mostly colonize out of the way lands in the frozen north of the Mid West.

When Jotun become very old they gradually transform into huge dire wolves, forcing them to move even farther into the wilderness lest hey be hunted by their own kin.

Inspiration: Norse, Danes, Cossacks.

---

Actually, the Maizenians were based on Mayan nd Aztec lore regrding humans (or at least royal humans) having been made out of corn and blood. They would flatten their foreheads with boards and do their hair up in curls to look more like corn. I was going to just run with that and have the Mesoamericans running around being photo-synthetic and made out of corn. But there's no particular reason that the New World Natives couldn't also be from space instead of Northeast Asia.

As to Iriquois Wooden people who wear masks that make them transform into other people, I'm totally in favor of that. Do you remember what they were called? Also, I think there should probably be the Salmon people and the acorn people of the Northwest and far West respectively - though of course neither are terribly important for most of the Western stuff you want to do (exept for the gold rush of course).

-Username17
===========
also... arghrable! these were all written before soemthing in the forum code changed, so the font sizes are scaling weird.

[Judging__Eagle]

part 3
========

FrankTrollman

The Deep Ones
"Ia Ia, I get right on it, monkey boy."

If a Deep One was standing erect it would usually crest 1.7m by a slight margin. However, a Deep One's naturally hunched posture makes them rarely crest 1.3m. A Deep One's body is frog-like in appearance, with slit-pupiled eyes placed squarely on top of their head and an enormous maw that appears to always be smiling. Deep Ones breath water as easily as air and can resist pressures that would be unthinkable for virtually any other living creature.

The culture of the Deep Ones goes back thousands of years and the Deep Ones considered themselves "civilized" when the Sidhe were busy hitting each other's naked forms with rocks. However, theirs is an empire in decline. The emperors of the deep have long rejected change and the other powers of the Old World have now completely overshadowed them in almost all fields of endeavor. Fine clay and cloth products once producible only beneath the waves have been replicated by Svartalf artisans, and reefs belonging to the Empire are now openly fought over by surface powers as exploitive markets. A river of gold no longer pours into the sea like it once did.

And so it is of little surprise that Deep Ones come out to the West (even though for them the trek is to the East) looking for work. Fearing that the uncounted hordes from beneath the waves might completely overrun the virgin lands, many groups and nations take open steps to limit the immigration of female Deep Ones. Thus it is mostly male Deep Ones that make it to the West to work on the Great Rails – massive multidimensional constructs of steel and memory that haul goods across the great planes from civilized lands to the interior.

Inspiration: Chinese, H.P. Lovecraft

Lutin
"I found a penny yesterday. It is worth money."

The Lutin stand less than half a meter tall and have elaborately colored insect-like wings coming out of their back. While a Lutin cannot remain aloft for long, they can run at tremendous speed with wing assistance. Lutin have small antennae on their heads which emerge from their pastel-colored hair. These allow them to hear sounds much higher in pitch than other peoples. Lutin smell like flowers, to the extent that they can be tracked by this phenomenon.

The Lutin have never had major holdings in the Old World. Lutin lands have been conquered and reconquered by emperors from the North, South, and East. Banners flown by Loci, Ifrit, and Sidhe have been placed over Lutin cities time and time again.

The cube square law works in the favor of Lutin, who can lift several times their own (extremely modest) weight. Most people dismiss Lutin because of their stature, and they have the reputation of being thieves, jovially useless hobos, and vapid entertainers.

Inspiration: Basques, Occitans, Gypsies

Duszek
"Boo."

The measurable height of the Duszek varies with the length of their shadow. As their shadow grows, more of their body becomes ephemeral and difficult to see. At noon and at night, a Duszek stands an imposing 2m tall. At the cusp of sunrise and sunset, only about a centimeter of a Duszek is capable of touching or being touched by objects. Because of their difficulties in touching things for part of the day, Duszek are wont to cover themselves with chalk or birch ash, as these materials are immune to this particular facet of their existence. Caster shells similarly penetrate the incorporeality of the Duszek at late day, so their reputation as unstoppable ghost faced stranglers is of late somewhat undeserved.

Duszeck have several layers of sharpened teeth like a shark and new ones are constantly coming in to replace the teeth which fall out. Duszek do not have finger nails, and use their mouths for many tasks that others turn to hands for. The Duszek have a separate right and left lower jaw and move them independently.

The Duszek are divided in loyalty between the high pontiff and the eastern patriarch, but most of them come from lands under the grip of the Czar and his Winter Court. Most Duszek come to the West by heading East across the seas and the Czar's interest in the New World is mostly limited to hunting and fishing along the Western Coast.

Inspiration: Poles, Russians

---

And the Iroquois guys are going to be called Hahgwehd. They wear wooden masks because they don't have faces and are otherwise unable to talk.

-Username17

=========

[Judging__Eagle]

part 4
===========
FrankTrollman

Skriatok
"Stay away you greedy meddling giants! I know what you want. You can't have it!"

Skriatok stand a mere 1.2m on average and have skin the texture and sheen of marble. They gain nutrition from little other than moss and alcohol, though their demands of these substances are surprisingly modest considering. Most Skriatok allow lichen to grow on their bodies, which in turn mostly limits itself to positions other races grow hair. The specific gravity of a Skriatok is usually about 3 and they sink rapidly in water. Skriatok do not freeze or burn at any practically achievable temperature.

If a Skriatok fails to touch reasonably pure gold for three whole days, he will transform into inanimate stone with the rising of the sun on the fourth day – and remain a statue until gold is again touched to its form. On the other hand, a Skriatok who touches more than a modest amount of gold every day for a month will find himself growing, with his appetites outpacing his increase in size. It is telling that the Czar of the Winter Court is a hulking monstrosity of 4 meters who must drain down a vodka barrel every day.

Skriatok have a reputation for being greedy, unfriendly, jealous, and mean. This is not unwarranted as Skriatok are frequently subjected to paranoid delusions that others will attempt to part them from their gold, their vodka, or their rock algae.

Inspiration: Russians, Slovaks

Slavery in the New World

Slavery is an ugly institution, but not a particularly new one. Some of the first records detail the capture and sale of slaves, and even then it is clear that the idea of slavery predates even the writings of the Deep Ones. Slavery is not even new to the New World. Hundreds of years before the first Oceanid claimed the New World (ironically for the Burning Empire of the Ifrit Sultan), Maizenian priests commanded work crews of thousands of slaves to erect temples to their gods. But it is undeniable fact that the New World has seen the institution of slavery raised from an ad hoc affair to a brutal international institution whose ramifications will be clearly visible in demographics for a thousand years.

The first Ifrit expeditions to the New World happily captured and enslaved whole villages of the native inhabitants, continuing a practice that was commonplace in the Burning Empire. At that time wealthy Ifrit would think nothing of keeping slaves of Lutin, Sidhe, or each other. The Sidhe, similarly kept Lutin and other Sidhe as slaves as a regular occurrence. As colonies began being established in the New World, the colonial powers such as Tir na nOg and the Burning Empire brought other Old Worlders in chains, and supplemented their slave numbers with locally kidnapped peoples.

With the rise of the plantation system, and the extremely lethal work environs of the Oak Swamps and the Southern silver mines, using Sidhe or even natives as primary slave sources began to strain the limits and a new source of slaves was found in the South of the Old World. Anansi and Wakyambi could be kidnapped en masse from their homes and dragged across the seas to fulfill the ravenous demands for slaves. Modern slave taking became so effective that taking Sidhe, Lutin, or Ifrit as slaves became unnecessary, and eventually it was outlawed practically everywhere.

During the time frame of Dead Man's Hand, slavery is on the way out. Slave revolts all over the world are making progress, and abolitionist movements are major political forces on every continent. Furthermore, the skilled labor needs of modern magitech and steam industry are incompatible with slave holding societies: and these new technologies and production methods out produce the slave holding production methods at every turn. But even with the writing on the wall, slave holders are not allowing "their" way of life to go without a fight. Even as popular pinion and economic reality turns more and more strongly against the practice, slave holders are becoming more and more ruthlessly murderous to hold on to the people that they own. In the unincorporated areas of the West, slavers have been known to assault towns believed to have an abolitionist electoral bias. Open war seems inevitable.

Something to keep in mind when you consider the Anansi and the Wakyambi is that they are as a group in the West because of slavery. While free Anansi and Wakyambi certainly exist, practically every one of them is either an escaped slave or the descendent of escaped slaves. While many generations of Sidhe struggled under the yokes of cruel masters, there were also many Sidhe who never tasted either end of the whip. Slavery is a horrible part of the West, and the mere presence of a Wakyambi is a bitter reminder of its cruel past, its brutal reality, and its ghastly legacy.

Anansi
"Don't throw me in the briar patch!"

An Anansi adult stands 1.4m tall and its skin is covered with stripes, dots, and more amorphous contrast markings in brown and pale cream. Anansi can secrete their choice of sticky and non-sticky webbing from spinnerets in their lower back and have venomous fangs. Anansi have two thumbs of each hand and their joints have in general more degrees of rotation than do those of other races. Anansi think nothing of turning their heads to look behind them, and their hands can reach any part of their back without strain.

Anansi pride themselves on their trickery, leading to unfavorable stereotypes among other races as Happy-Go-Lucky folks who don't (or can't) care about big things and are too simple to be allowed to wander free; or as dishonest and cunning natural thieves who can't be allowed to freely interact with civilization. Despite the contradictions, many people hold both stereotypes to be true.

In their native lands it is said that Anansi worshipped strange gods and lived in trees. There are few Anansi in the West who could tell you how much of that was true. Anansi in the West have long since been stripped of their names, their stories have been outlawed, and their web tapestries burned.

Inspiration: African Americans

Wakyambi
""

The Wakyambi measure an average of 1.8m tall and have arms which are longer in proportion to their bodies than other sapient races. Seemingly deathly thin, Wakyambi have no eyes, and navigate through feeling perturbations in low frequency sound. Wakyambi normally hum continuously at a frequency at or below the minimum frequency others can hear.

The gold-rich empires and kingdoms of the Wakyambi are by-and-large in flames. The colonial powers of the Old World arm bandits and rape gangs up and down the coast in exchange for slaves, lawlessness and anarchy rule those lands. Even recently free Wakyambi in the West rarely want to return to their homes – there is nothing to return home to.

Wakyambi communicate mostly through a rich song that is largely below the range that other races can hear. It is frequent practice in some slave holding areas to scar the vocal chords of Wakyambi slaves in order to prevent them from being able to secretly plot against their masters. This practice leaves the Wakyambi incapable of supplementing the low frequency sound which surrounds them and thus makes it extremely difficult for them to get around.

Inspiration: African Americans

---

OK, that's pretty much the Old Worlders taken care of. Once the Natives are together, we can move on to Bestiary. I think Unicorn riders and Aurochs is an important step here.

-Username17
=====

[Judging__Eagle]

======
FrankTrollmanNative Magics

Magitech, domestic livestock, and steel were entirely unknown in the New World before the arrival of settlers from the Old. Nevertheless, native societies existed for hundreds, even thousands of years before they were "discovered". The magic used by each tribe is very different, and even within each tribe the magical capabilities of Shaman vary spectacularly. Native magic is not Magitech, it does not appear in books and seems to follow few rules.

Each Shaman has their own particular tricks which are usually kept well hidden from others, even within the same tribe. Some of it seems to be a boon, other magic appears to be quite baleful. All of it is mysterious, and most of all personal to the shaman invoking it.

Kachinas
"All of life is a dance. We dance because we are alive. How can you live and not dance?"

The Kachinas are a collection of tribes whose people resemble statues made out of cornhusks, feathers, and plaster. While they are living things, the first colonial explorers to meet them mistook the Kachinas for machines. Kachinas stand an average of 1.7m tall, and speak a language wild gesticulations and wooden-sounding clacks.

Kachinas are virtually incapable of standing still. Every moment of the day they are dancing, or fidgeting, or running. The muscles of the Kachina are tied together in a massive spring-like system where it is literally less effort to continue moving than it is to stop. Also, the lungs of a Kachina are unpowered and open to the air through a series of holes in the chest. If a Kachina were to stop moving, it would be unable to breathe (barring a strong wind).

The Kachinas are generally agriculturalists. They live in adobe villages and grow maize.

Kachina Magic: The magic of the Kachina people is very somatic. Specific dances cause specific events, and the Kachina Shamans are able to use these dances to control the weather six months out of the year. More powerful magic requires more Shamans and longer dances. Most magic dances govern wind, water, and maize – which are considered to be the elements of life.

Inspiration: Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo

---

Each of the tribes gets their own Magic write-up because they don't use the normal system of steam-punk devices and magitech that everyone form the Old World does.

-Username17

======

Frank Trollman

I have no idea what the "inspirations" for a lot of these are. Obviously Ananzi, Katchina, and Sidhe are African, Hopi/Zuni/"Pueblo", and Celtic. What are the stories that the Romani pixies, Wakyambi, and Skriatok are from?

The current races are god damn fantastic however. I love the little but BIG differences. What inspired the Duszek?

OK, the Lutin are French pixies. Pranksters, little people, flying butterfly winged pixies. Also they are giant green dudes with sharp teeth and shit, but that's folklore for you. Combining the folkloric constraints of being impish and small with the characteristic of being stupid and easy to take advantage of I found a common ground with the Romani, the Gascon, and the Basque - groups in the French lands who were portrayed as stupid and easy to take advantage of as part of institutionalized racism that took advantage of those groups. Basically I gave them the appearance of one version of the Lutin, and a social caste consistent with another. And then I gave them the location of people who were appropriately treated by the people whose name that is.

Wakyambi are big night walking, blood drinking, warrior ogres from African folklore. Basically all African folkloric creatures are extremely horrific as far as I can tell. Bloody histories make for bloody legends. In deference to their location I threw in some biological notes from bats (who walk the night) and elephants (who are associated with Wakyambi folklorically anyway). I took out the canibalism and the poison use because honestly I don't think it adds anything. The empires they pine over are recognizable as the Golden Kingdom of Mali - which was indeed essentially torn asunder by the slave trade.

Skriatok are Slovakian Leprechauns. Straight up. Gold filching, green wearing little people. From Slovakia. I don't know why - maybe it has something to do with the whole Indo-European thing? I mean hell, the Irish caste system and the Indic caste system aren't convergeant, they are divergeant. Anyhow, the fey folk in those stories have to leave you alone if you give them alcohol, and have a tendency to turn to stone in sunlight. Turning to stone in sunlight permanently, or every time the sun came up would be unplayable, so I simply grabbed another Slavic thing about spirit people having to do things in threes to turn and slipped in the gold escape to put things on an even keel.

Duszek are Polish fairies, but they are also ghosts. So the same word pops up when you're talking about floating sheets with eyes that pass through walls and also when you're talking about little girls with dragonfly wings. Sigh. Straight incorporeality is unplayable, so I did a little digging and in Eastern European stuff the undead have their powers tied to their shadows - vampires and such are at full power at night and also at high noon. I combined that with the notion that sometimes they are incorporeal and sometimes they are not to get the variably solid thing they have going on. In deference to their appearance as floaty-marshmallow dudes I gave them the distinctive fingernail-less fingers, and the special mouth came in as a good "real world" look of the jack-o-lantern faces these guys have.

---

The folk process is taking things you like and leaving things you don't. Mixing and matching until you get a good story. D&D has conditioned us to expect a single word to refer to a single monster, but that's really not how things work. A single monster goes by multiple names (see: Catoblepas, Gorgon); while a single name refers to many different kinds of creatures (see: dragon, fairy).

So in looking through wildly disparate stories, and cross referencing with real-world historical analogues, I had to toss out a lot. You can't have "Duszek" mean everything that it actually means, because it means more than one thing. But you can make something cool that uses elements from a lot of versions of the Duszek, and then future storytellers will reference that work and so on.

Am I just being too overly sensitive for finding this topic offensive, especially the description on races?

Not really. The year is 1854 or so, and things are really offensive. People, real live human beings who can talk are owned as property and repeatedly raped so that they will give birth to a new generation of people that will also be owned by the people who raped them. The Cherokee live in Oklahoma because white people wanted their gold mines and prosperous cities and fvcking took them away in gross violation of treaty.

The old west is a really offensive time and place. And if you can read about it and not have your heart catch in your throat a little bit there's something wrong with you.

And every time you have real human beings replaced with some sort of specifically non-human creature that on some level cheapens them. No matter what kind of magic powers you ascribe to them, the fact is that you're making them "non-human". On some level they just aren't as worthy in your story as they actually are in real life. The entire concept of the elf, regardless of the culture which spawned the legend, is a way to explain away the extermination of peoples.

The statement "There were great people here before, they had powers and culture, but they became small and live underground" is a fvcking euphamism for genocide. Every single race I have written up so far is itself a euphamism for genocide. The Wakyambi, the Sidhe, the Efreet, the Alfar - all of these are stories from the world to explain why there are remnants of cultures who are all fvcking dead.

In any language. In any civilization. In any corner of the world where you find stories of "elves" you are finding evidence of a crime so heinous and so massive that it defies description and becomes euphamistic legend. Everyone in this setting is an elf, and it's really offensive. It's supposed to be.

-Username17

========

FrankTrollman

Unfortunately, this is almost thematically impossible in games like D&D and Shadowrun. That makes me feel bad. I guess I just got kind of depressed when I see a setting where your children and your children's children will be brainwashed by society to become slavers and mass murderers. I understand there's a RL basis for this and everything, but still.

That's not entirely fair. It's about 1854. If things go according to human histry (which they may or may not), the Emancipation Proclamation will happen in 11 years. In our world not did open war seem inevitable, it actually happened, and the slave holding population lost.

This is the time of Bleeding Kansas. Each of the new territories in the West can vote to be Slave or Free. The Free Territories (which have more people) respond by shipping people to the west in order to rock the vote. The Slave Territories (who have more evil) respond by sending killers out to murder people in the west that are agitating a pro-Free vote.

This is the time of John Brown, Mammy Pleasant, and Chief John Ross. There are lots of things you can do to make the world a better place. Lots of them were done by real people, and they really worked.

-Username17
=========
FrankTrollman

Wendigo
"If you can understand me, you will be delicious."

The Wendigo are a collection of tribes of wandering hunters and cannibals. The Wendigo are both a race and an ideology of man eating and insanity. The original people are gaunt creatures who tower as much as 2.3m in height even stooped as a mantis is. They are stick-thin and their hands end in claws and hooks. The Wendigo are all-white and their bones grind together audibly if they stay still for more than a few minutes. Wendigo have hooks on their faces which are sufficiently load bearing to hold meat.

The Wendigo tribes are very small for whenever they run out of huntable meat in an area they quickly turn on their own children and devour them. Wendigo are also known to dye captives white and force them to enact their depraved and cannibalistic lifestyle. Wendigo keep to the mountains and the forest and are constantly trying to tear down the cities made by settlers and tribes alike.

Wendigo seem to derive sustenance not from the chemistry of a food, but from its thoughts. While devouring an apple or a potato gives no nutritional benefit to a Wendigo, eating animals is beneficial and eating people the most filling of all. However, a horrible side effect of this is that while eating the livers of many people who had hopes and dreams and language will sustain a Wendigo, it will not satiate them. Worse, such over stimulation causes the Wendigo to grow taller, which in turn increases their need for their ghastly food.

Wendigo Magic: Magic, no matter how cleverly or efficiently it is used, leaks into the world and accumulates in pools and eddies. These turbulences cause the dead to rise and the night to fill with terror. In most tribes it is the job of a Shaman to mitigate these potentially disastrous results. To channel magic into places where its animating nature can be bled off harmlessly or to send it to a far away land. The Wendigo stand a sharp contrast to that aim, and most of their rites involve releasing unrestrained magic and invoking calamity upon the world or its denizens.

Wendigo shamans borrow heavily from the rituals of other tribes. However, since the entire purpose is to advance hordes of the undead and eventually swallow the sun, they rarely bother to actually learn the intricacies of these magics. Wendigo practice human sacrifice, but almost always consume most or all of the corpses before the Lurkers can take their fill. A Wendigo shaman will often stop what he is doing mid-verse and simply stare intently, waiting for the built up magics to dissipate balefully.

The one ceremony that the Wendigo seem really intent upon perform correctly is an induction ceremony. An ordinary person captured by the Wendigo will be burned and mutilated with small knives and hot rocks and forced to eat the flesh of another person. At the end of the dark rite the victim's mind is burned out and its body is recolored white as bone. While no physiological changes other than coloration seem to be changed, the new inductee will believe himself to be a Wendigo in truth – hunting people for food along with the rest of its reviled tribe.

Inspiration: Algonquian, Cree, Seminole

-Username17
==========

Tribal discussion continues.

Ani-Yunti
"WE'VE HAD DAUNTING PROBLEMS IN MANY CRITICAL AREAS."

The Ani-Yunti appear as 1.8m tall tornadoes filled with chunks of charred sycamore. Ani-Yunti are in fact humanoids who are about 1.4m tall who are surrounded by a curtain of wind and ash at all times. Their feet rarely touch the ground. When an Ani-Yunti reaches through its wind sheathe, it makes a thunderous roar. The suspended particles in the wind sheathe are conductive, and Ani-Yunti are effectively protected from electricity. Ani-Yunti can feel the presence of metals within about 4m of their bodies even if there is solid rock in the way.

The Ani-Yunti were very sympathetic to the settlers from the Old World and aided them in many things. They taught them agriculture techniques appropriate to the land and moved storms away from their cities. The Ani-Yunti also learned from the settlers, adopting much of their magitech and building cities of their own using the fruits of Old World science. During the revolutionary period, the Ani-Yunti fought side by side with the colonists against the Old World kingdoms. Some Ani-Yunti joined the Union as citizens, and some Old Worlders joined the clans of the Ani-Yunti.

But as the Ani-Yunti became wealthy, the Southern states became jealous. The magictech devices of their cities harvested power from water and wind. They excavated copper and gold from the ground. And the plantation owners wanted it. And so a fake treaty was drafted authorizing the removal of all the Ani-Yunti from their cities, farms, factories, and mines. The Ani-Yunti were forced out of their homes at gunpoint and forcibly marched into the West, left there to live or die as the elements saw fit.

Ani-Yunti Magic: The Ani-Yunti can call and direct storms. What actually comes from these storms, be it rain or lightning, frogs or hail, is completely out of the control of Ani-Yunti shaman. By putting the proper smoke and songs into the air, groups of shamans can create the storms and move them crudely north or south, east or west. In ages past this was used primarily for agriculture as a storm upstream would send water down the rivers that the Ani-Yunti could use for agriculture. But in their new lands, the rains come infrequently and the paths of rivers are unpredictable.

The Shamans have become marginalized in Ani-Yunti tribes. Their power has been almost wholly replaced by magitech engineers.

Inspiration: Cherokee

-Username17
========

]Maizenians
"The sun is the source of life, but it is also cruel and harsh. Life is a planted seed, ultimately harvested in death. If you do not resign yourself to this, how can you be happy?"

Standing 1.2m tall, the Maizenians are a plant-like people who grow edible and delicious seeds on their faces. Their feet are covered with root hairs from which they conduct all of their drinking. And while they do gain a substantial amount of nutrition through photosynthesis when their green bodies are exposed to the sun, their veins flow with bright red blood and they do have to eat food.

The Maizenians are deeply aware of the agricultural nature of their existence. The legends of their fallen empires held that people had been literally planted in the ground in order to create a constant crop for blood hungry and savage gods. Maizenians consider themselves to be food, though they generally have no particular desire to die

Some of the largest cities the world has ever seen were populated by Maizenians in the days before the arrival of the Old Worlders. Many of these cities have been razed to the ground, only to have the sites claimed by the devouring jungle which surrounded them. Maizenians avoid clothing (but not jewelry) instinctually as it blocks out the life giving rays of the sun. Under Ifrit rule, Maizenians are forced to wear clothing in public, which causes them distress.

Maizenian Magic: The ancient practices of the Maizenian priests have long been effectively outlawed by the Ifrit overlords of the lands once belonging to the Golden King and the King of Rain. The few rituals which remain are practiced in secret. Mock battles between jaguars and eagles spread strife, pull sunshine and rain out of the sky and keep lurkers away. The Maizenians who participate in these rituals have elaborate animal costumes and beat each other bloody with flails.

Inspiration: Aztec, Maya

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

========
Tatanka
"It does not take many words to speak truth."

Tatanka are massive and hairy creatures standing an average of 2.4m tall. Their skin seems fit for a creature still larger, and it hangs down from their bodies in clumps. Tatanka have a hump which pushes their horned head forward and carries nutrients and water sufficient to keep them going for days. Tatanka can sustain activity every moment that they are awake, but Tatanka do not dream or even breathe while asleep.

Tatanka appear to move and speak very slowly, though this is in part an illusion which permeates the Tatanka people. The directly observed speed of any Tatanka action is almost comically slow: sentences have measurable and aggravating pauses punctuating them, the Tatanka puts one foot in front of the other at a painfully slow pace yet it actually reaches any destination (even near ones) in a shockingly short amount of time. The actual information passed in a Tatanka conversation is often quite high.

The Tatanka traditionally hold a certain veneration for putting up with hardship. Theirs is a warrior culture, and suffering or even dying is perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate one's worth. While the Tatanka look very much like buffalo, they are almost the opposite when it comes to diet. Tatanka traditionally hunt for most of their food and will travel long distances to accomplish this. The spatial distortion which accompanies all Tatanka is very helpful in battle, and bulls are justifiably feared.

Tatanka Magic: All Tatanka store time in their humps, but the Shamans are truly adept at using herbs and prayer to gather time and use it for things. Much of Tatanka magic is centered around medicine, and indeed all Tatanka magic is collectively called "medicine". Tatanka rituals exist which will weaken or destroy targets as if a great weight of time were placed upon them, as well as rituals which repair living things as if they had been granted a long time of recovery.

Truly accomplished Tatanka shamans grow younger over time, and end their days as calves.

Inspiration: Lakota

-Username17

=========

Still working...

The Jogah
"I encourage you to think of the effects of your actions not just on yourself, but on others in the world. After all, you could be anybody and it is unreasonable to second guess your own identity in important matters."

A Jogah's natural form is almost never seen, but on those rare occasions when it is, a Jogah appears as an ovoid ripple in space roughly 1.5m in height that is most analogous to the disturbance left in a stream after a rock is skipped across its surface. Even the burbling sound the naked Jogah makes is not unlike the sound of a fast flowing brook. And yet, this information is rarely useful in identifying a Jogah because a Jogah's form changes to match a specific creature when they wear a mask made in that creature's image. A Jogah does not become "a deer", it becomes that deer. And most Jogah choose to take the forms of people – a fact which has not endeared them to the Union.

The Jogah have a history of a quite egalitarian society, whose principals were largely copied in the creation of the Union (a fact whose irony is not lost on any Jogah). The Jogah have very little concept of differences between individuals and historically have a difficult time respecting or understanding privacy or property.

Jogah can be recognized from the original person because regardless of how they appear they do not get wet. Water passes through them as if they were so much empty space. Alcohol does not do this, and enterprising Jogah have been known to fake wetness by dousing themselves in the strongest of fire water.

Jogah Magic: Jogah magic centers upon wood carving. A dedicated Jogah wood carver can create a mask which in some capacity takes part of the soul of whoever the mask was fashioned in the guise of, allowing a Jogah to wear that mask and seemingly become that person for so long as the mask is worn and the original possessor of the face still lives.

This magic is deeply frowned upon by Old World religions on the grounds that stealing portions of the souls of others is all kinds of not OK.

Inspiration: The Five Nations of the Iroquois

-Username17

=============